09
2008
Why do you need an SSL Certification?
SSL is an acronym for Secure Socket Layer, which is an open source protocol designed by Netscape to offer greater security for online transactions. In the early days of the internet when people were first starting to do online transactions many people feared that their information would be compromised when they went through an online transaction. This caused a high degree of skepticism amongst prospective clients of online transactions. Understanding this problem many companies went in search of some means to ensure the security of data transmitted over the internet and through online ecommerce stores. The obvious potential of online shopping and ecommerce was the driving force behind trying to create this secure method of transaction and if it was accomplished then huge profits by online retailers could be realized. The SSL certificate was the first really positive step in ensuring consumers that their online transactions would be secure.
The SSL certificate was developed by Netscape, one of the leading internet browsers of the day and many feared that because it was developed by an internet browser that perhaps it would be developed to only function on that browser, competing browsers included AOL, Internet Explorer and Mozilla. Those fears that the Netscape SSL certificate would not be able to be used with other browsers was quickly diminished as people saw that a web site could use an SSL cert and the certificate would be compatible to allowing online transactions through almost all internet browsers.
What happens when an online transaction takes place is that the data submitted by consumer through ecommerce store must then be submitted to the merchant account provider and payment gateway used by the ecommerce store. This data must flow over the internet and because of this it must be secure or else anyone who might be tapping into that line of communication could then read and steal the information of the consumer which would then lower consumer confidence in the process and derail online shopping. The way that someone might tap into the line of communication is called hacking and hackers have been prevalent throughout the internet from it’s very earliest days.
Governments had used secure transmissions for hundreds of years, perhaps the most famous of which was the enigma machine whose German code was broken by the British in World War II. Now businesses and consumers would use the same type of theoretical program when transmitting sensitive account information data across the internet.
If you are going to run online transactions through your ecommerce web site store then you really must have an SSL certificate. Most merchant providers and payment gateways will not work with your online store if you do not have at least a 40bit secure socket layer installed and many wont work with you unless your SSL is 128bit encrypted.
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